The Thackray Medical Museum, admired today for its imposing architecture and grand entrance hall, has a long and chequered history.
It first opened in 1861 as the purpose-built Leeds Union Workhouse, a harsh and unwelcoming home for poor and homeless people with nowhere else to go. Over the years, new buildings were gradually added to the workhouse complex, including a separate infirmary.
More enlightened policies and the introduction of state support in the early twentieth century meant that workhouses were no longer needed, and in 1925 the Leeds Union Workhouse infirmary was renamed St James’s Hospital. By 1945, the rest of the workhouse had merged with the hospital and it became part of the NHS in 1948.
By the 1990s, the old Leeds Union Workhouse building was considered unfit for modern medicine. As a listed building, it could not be demolished and Parliament gave permission for it to house the Thackray Medical Museum, which opened in 1997.
